Analysis by Mike McCarthy
Washington - The killing of terrorist ringleader Osama bin Laden could force the United States and Pakistan to reassess their relations in what one analyst called a potential ‘moment of truth.’
The US and Pakistan have forged a close relationship in combating al-Qaeda and Islamist militants, but in the process have been suspicious of each others’ motives and true intentions.
Bin Laden’s slaying deep inside Pakistan at the hands of elite US commandos was only the latest, most high-profile case to raise questions about whether Pakistan is fully committed to the war on terrorism, even as it receives billions of dollars in US aid.
How could bin Laden, the most-wanted terrorist in the world, be living comfortably and in such close proximity to Islamabad without the knowledge of Pakistani authorities?
President Barack Obama’s top adviser for counterterrorism, John Brennan, said Monday that the United States will look into whether bin Laden had any support mechanisms while living in Pakistan, and acknowledged that bin Laden appeared to be ‘hiding in plain sight.’
‘We are talking with the Pakistanis on a regular basis now,’ Brennan said. ‘We are going to pursue all leads.’
He pointed out Pakistan’s long track record of arresting and handing over top al-Qaeda figures.
Hussain Haqqani, the Pakistani ambassador in Washington, said his government had no knowledge of bin Laden’s location, adding: ‘We are very glad that our American partners did.’
‘We did not know, we had no knowledge,’ Haqqani said on CNN. ‘And if we had knowledge, we would have acted on it long ago.’
US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Pakistan has ‘contributed greatly to our efforts to dismantle al-Qaeda. In fact, cooperation with Pakistan helped lead us to bin Laden and the compound in which he was hiding.’
However, there is a persistent belief in the US that Pakistan does just enough to please Washington but has stopped short of going more aggressively after terrorists and Islamist militants.
Pakistan has had long-standing concerns over whether the US will leave Afghanistan prematurely, and therefore hedges its bets by maintaining ties to the Afghan Taliban through its intelligence services. The US reportedly did not inform Pakistani authorities of the raid by elite US soldiers until it was complete.
The questions over US-Pakistani ties come at a time of already deteriorating relations between the two countries, most recently over the arrest of a CIA contractor in Pakistan, and covert US drone airstrikes seen by Pakistanis as violations of their sovereignty.
Pakistani leaders for years rejected the notion that bin Laden was hiding in their country, despite widespread consensus that he was there, albeit he was assumed to be much closer to the Afghan border than turned out to be the case.
Daniel Markey, an expert on Pakistan at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, said the US and Pakistan need to sort out which direction they want to take the relationship, and bin Laden’s death is an opportunity for that.
‘Osama bin Laden’s death comes at a time of intense crisis between the United States and Pakistan,’ Markey said. ‘Its repercussions have the potential to launch the bilateral relationship off a cliff, or to bring US and Pakistani strategic interests into better alignment.’
- DPA
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